Y’all, I just read the most enchanting book. Last week, Shveta Thakrar’s latest novel, Divining the Leaves, came out! If you’ve been following along in my newsletter, you’ll know I was lucky enough to get my hands on an ARC sooner. I’ve been savoring this story ever since. It’s magical!
What is an ARC, you ask? It’s an advanced reader copy that publishers send out before a book is released for reviews and buzz. I enjoy the physical experience of reading and annotating a good book, so I jumped at the chance to get my hands on a bound manuscript (MS). It was a very happy day when it came. I’d just gotten home from the gym, so pardon the strategic crop. No one needs to see my sweaty hair; my smile on the other hand is worth sharing because the joy is real. Also, the mailer was orange! One of my favorite colors.
It’s not a secret that I love folklore, and I love how Shveta incorporates folklore that I am less familiar with into poignant stories about the young adult (YA) experience. Learning about yakshas and yakshinis is something I find fun and exciting. I blame that infamous folklore class I took my last semester of uni. So I read sentences like this one: “She was talking to figures from folklore! She would never be able to go home and live a mundane life again.”
And I’m a goner. Thank you, Shveta, for realizing the dream. Even if I weren’t a folklore fangirl, Shveta’s writing would win me over. Her prose is gorgeous. Her world building is immersive and imaginative. Divining the Leaves is Shveta’s third book. I’ve read them all, and true to form, wisdom and compassion are woven into and throughout this unfolding narrative about what it means to belong, what it means to be a friend, and what it means to embrace the magic of our individuality.
I love that this is an enemies to friends story. We need more male/female platonic friendships represented in young adult literature. Ask the mama of a teen, how I know. That Ridhi and Nilesh aren’t soulmates but mates(friends, we’re using the UK definition here) at the end is perfect. That said there is lots of YA romance in this book and a couple of supporting characters that make things very interesting. The romance is sweet/age-appropriate, so no worries about explicit content if you want to share this book with the young people in your life.
While Nilesh was my favorite of our two protagonists, I have to say that I adored Ridhi and identified hard with her love of the natural world. She’s a dancer, a perfumist, a baker, an entrepreneur, a lover of folklore and believer of magic. She’s trying to belong and searching for balance in her life, and it was a joy to tag along on her adventure. I love the forest, too, Ridhi!
Divining the Leaves is a gem of a book. It’s beautiful. It’s contemplative. It unfolds and unfurls. There is so much honesty in this story. Nilesh and Ridhi are true young people–not adult characters masquerading as kids. Their empathy and understanding is developing. I found myself chuckling at how very teen boy Nilesh’s POV was. Does he get carried away by a certain character’s beauty? Does he make rash decisions that he later regrets? Does growth come from doing things the hard way? Yes, yes, and yes, and I am so here for it.
Saying this next part without spoilers is tricky, but let me try. The experience that lets Nilesh understand his friend, Ridhi, is fantastic. My sister and I have a long standing joke about how we want to crash out in this exact way, and I adored the exploration of what that might actually feel like. The empathy that Nilesh feels because of this experience is beautiful, and arriving here with him as a reader felt so rewarding. One of my favorite lines from the book is, “No, he didn’t owe her his friendship. But he wanted her to have it, which was better.”
So folklore, gorgeous writing, characters that feel real, themes that matter, are all reasons I enjoyed this book, but also _the food_! Oh my goodness, if I could eat this book I would. I am here for all the descriptions of rasamalei, enchanted lilac donuts, rosewater brownies, and cookies. Unlike Kartik, I’m waiting for Ridhi’s cashew cardamom coconut cookies, please and thank you. Fun fact, when I annotate books, I use a different color for the food descriptions that make me what to go on quests. It’s hard to see it because the lighting in my ploffice does weird things to color throughout the day, but the orange tabs are for food in this instance. The peach tabs were for everything else that I needed quick reference to–my favorite passages in other words.
There is a lot of magic in this book. I was so delighted to return to the Night Market, and I got so many feels at the end with the image of a happy family exploring this amazing place together, but I don’t want to say anything more because how the Night Market returns was the best. It felt like the first time I went to Meow Wolf (in Santa Fe, it’s better than Denver, highly recommend) and you can’t believe what is happening. The magic of first loves, the magic of self discovery, but the magic of spring in Atlanta, Georgia was what melted my heart. I spent many of my YA summers in Atlanta, visiting my uncle and aunt. They lived in Sandy Springs, and I can say with absolute conviction that there is magic in the woods and kudzu vines.
Like magic, there are lots of themes Shveta explores in Divining the Leaves, and one that surprised and delighted me was the importance of third places for teens. We all need more places than home and work/school, but where do we find those third places? What role do they play in our ability to find balance? How do we know which third place is safe or right for us? I swooned when Kamini not so subtly transformed the third place of the arcade into something that felt more familiar to her. It was just another one of those Shveta Thakrar magic moments.
I adored this book. It’s exactly what I wish I had at my finger tips when I was a teen. Shveta has created absolute magic with her Night Market Triptych. Every book is a standalone, but there are a couple of easter eggs at the end for readers of Star Daughter and The Dream Runners that will leave fans smiling.
To celebrate Divining the Leaves out in the wild I’m hosting a giveaway in my April newsletter. Shveta very generously gifted a signed hardpacked copy to a lucky subscriber. Isn’t it pretty!
Because of shipping the giveaway of the signed hardback will be limited to those with a US mailing address, but I’m also doing an ebook giveaway open to all Kindle readers.
If you’d like to be entered for a chance to win either the signed hardback or the ebook, subscribe to my newsletter before April 4, 2025. So many thanks to Shveta, Clare, and HarperCollins for sending Divining the Leaves my way. I’ve have so much fun in these pages. All my thoughts, sentiments, and pictures are my own. If you’d like to learn more about this gorgeous book all the links are below.